Timur bowed deeply after performing his 8th round of magic. He took off his hat and held it upside down in front of him. Some people in the crowd threw in a few coins to reward him for his outstanding performance.

With every coin that hit the bottom of his hat, he felt another piece of his pride break away. He who had once belonged to the nobility, attended the Academy, and had a promising future in the army ahead of him now had to resort to being a street performer for a living, fully dependent on the kindness of those he once viewed as beneath him. Before his fall from grace, he wouldn’t even have dared to enter the slums, now he was forced to in order to survive, however.

Timur grunted as he emptied his hat into a large purse and put it back on. “Gather ‘round folks, the show is about the start again!” he shouted with a forced smile on his face. He started waving his arms around again and the was filled with colorful fire once more.

Not even a minute after he restarted his show, he suddenly sensed a source of mana approaching him. The mana was weak and unrefined compared to his, but still too strong to be anything but a Magic User. He focused on the source of mana and tried to lock his own onto it. This technique was called ‘Mana Sense’ and it was an almost universal technique amongst mages.

After a few seconds, his Mana Sense had locked on to the source and tried to use it to pinpoint the Magic User. While doing this he also scanned the crowd with his eyes. Hoping to find whoever was emitting so much Mana. Powerful mages often minimized their mana emission, so he was fairly certain the Magic User in front of him wasn’t very powerful.

After searching for a while, his eyes landed on a young boy. The boy barely looked 10 years of age, but his Mana emission was comparable to that of kids that were 4 years older!

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Timur started sweating buckets. Such a young child with that amount of Mana emission could only be the child of a Duke or even an Archduke.

‘Crap’ he thought. ‘This kid definitely knows this is illegal.’. Timur never finished the Academy, therefore he was classified as an Uncertified Mage under Imperial law. Performing Magic without supervision as an Uncertified Mage was highly illegal. If this kid contacted the authorities it could cost him his life. He had to disappear now before it was too late.

‘But what about the kid? If I leave him be he might report me to the authorities anyways. If I take him out I will make an enemy out of a noble family. That only leaves kidnapping him.’. If Timur’s brain was a machine, one would’ve been able to hear the cogs turning from miles away. In a split second, he made the decision to abduct the kid.

He raised his hands and a giant wall of fire appeared between him and the crowd. Only one person in the crowd was left inside the wall with him; the Noble boy.

******

It all happened so fast. One moment Ruen stood in the crowd, watching the man performing magic and the next he was separated from the crowd by a giant, scorching wall of fire.

The Mage that had just been jovially performing looked him dead in the eye with a cold look in his eyes.

Before Ruen could even respond to the situation, the Mage waved his hands and a dome of wind covered Ruen’s mouth. Ruen tried to scream but the dome blocked out every sound he made.

The man threw Ruen over his shoulders and with a kick of his feet he produced a huge gust of wind that boosted them off the ground. They launched up into the air and landed on top of a building. The man continued to run with Ruen dangling over his shoulder. He jumped from roof to roof, quickly traversing the slums. After 10 minutes of traveling, the man jumped into the window of a small building on the very edge of the slums.

He threw Ruen down on the ground and waved his hand. The dome around Ruen’s mouth disappeared.

"Who are you?" The man said with a cold voice.